


I had a bad, bad time tonight

by Yukichouji



Category: Archie Comics & Related Fandoms, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: A bit of gore, Awkward Boners, Blood, Drugged Jughead Jones, Fangs Fogarty & Sweet Pea Friendship, M/M, Nakedness, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Others Mentioned - Freeform, Pre-Slash, Protective Sweet Pea (Riverdale), Satanic Cults, Spoilers for Season 3, Spoilers for the beginning of Season 4, Talk Of Human Sacrifices, Though vague, for Jughead/Sweet Pea, in regards to a dead goat, soft Fangs Fogarty, the bunker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:08:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23312875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yukichouji/pseuds/Yukichouji
Summary: “C’mon, c’mon, watch it.” Sweet Pea mumbles under his breath as he tries to help Fangs get Jones down the ladder to the bunker without Jones slipping and breaking his neck in the process. Sweet Pea reaching for Jones from down in the bunker and Fangs trying to hold onto him from the hatch up above. It’s not exactly an easy task what with the amount of blood Jones is covered in. Pretty much one consistent layer from head to toe, making him a lot more slippery than seems reasonable and the fact that all he’s wearing is a pair of really sticky, crimson coated boxers and Sweet Pea’s Serpent leather jacket doesn’t really make it any better either. (And if the blood doesn’t come out of Sweet Pea’s jacket after and it’s ruined? Sweet Pea is going to kill someone, not joking.) Plus, Jones isn’t exactly all that steady on his feet at the moment, so he’s hardly more than a dead weight with really pointy elbows in their combined grip.ORJughead gets himself kidnapped by a satanic cult and almost-sacrificed. Fangs and Sweet Pea are there to help with the clean-up.
Relationships: Fangs Fogarty & Sweet Pea, Jughead Jones/Sweet Pea
Comments: 8
Kudos: 99





	I had a bad, bad time tonight

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fill for a prompt I got on [tumblr](https://yukichouji.tumblr.com/) that read as follows:
> 
> _'Hey👋🏽I had a prompt request thing but no pressure if you don't want to write it I just love your jug/sweetpea works! My fave hc is jug being hurt or freaking out really badly (or both!) And he needs a shower coz he's sweaty/covered in blood/vomit or something but hes too hurt or out of it to stand so sweet pea holds him up in the shower &jugs embarrassed but Sweet Pea's gone thru juvy intake with fangs before so hes got no awkwardness & jug ends up getting hard cause I mean it's sweet pea'_
> 
> Naturally, satanic cults, human sacrifices and a sh*t ton of (animal) blood is what I came up with for this particular scenario...
> 
> This took me forever and I'm so sorry, but here it finally is! :)
> 
> The title is from [We Built Another World](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEnIYAfo2a0) by Wolf Parade.
> 
> As a side note: English is not my first language and I do not have a beta. For some reason I had a really hard time with the past tenses in this fic and I'm not sure, if I got it all right. If you find something that doesn't make sense, please feel free to let me know!

~*~*~

“C’mon, c’mon, watch it.” Sweet Pea mumbles under his breath as he tries to help Fangs get Jones down the ladder to the bunker without Jones slipping and breaking his neck in the process. Sweet Pea reaching for Jones from down in the bunker and Fangs trying to hold onto him from the hatch up above. It’s not exactly an easy task what with the amount of blood Jones is covered in. Pretty much one consistent layer from head to toe, making him a lot more slippery than seems reasonable and the fact that all he’s wearing is a pair of really sticky, crimson coated boxers and Sweet Pea’s Serpent leather jacket doesn’t really make it any better either. (And if the blood doesn’t come out of Sweet Pea’s jacket after and it’s ruined? Sweet Pea is going to kill someone, not joking.) Plus, Jones isn’t exactly all that steady on his feet at the moment, so he’s hardly more than a dead weight with really pointy elbows in their combined grip.

~*~*~

The events that lead to this whole mess started playing out about three weeks ago. When they found out about a new “religious group” that had taken up residence in Riverdale. “The church of Satan”, if you’ll believe it. There should be no need to mention that them renting space in the center of town and starting to advertise and canvass for new members openly hadn’t exactly gone over well with the residents of the Northside. The whole thing had seemed pretty sketchy from the start, to put it mildly.

It’s not like Sweet Pea begrudges anyone their religious orientation, how ever ridiculous he himself might find it, as long as they’re not hurting or harassing anyone, but these people had seemed kind of off right from the start. Too friendly and way too fucking cheerful. (Call him biased, but Sweet Pea’d always thought Satanists would be a bunch of goths with piercings all over and upside down pentagrams tattooed onto their foreheads or something stupid like that, not a group of well dressed, soft-spoken, solidly middle-class citizens.)

So, with nothing better to do during summer break anyway, the Serpents had started to investigate. And a good thing, too. Because the deeper Jones dug into the church’s history, the more weird and seemingly sinister it got, a trail of people going missing under suspicious circumstances following them around like a swarm of flies follows the scent of rot. So they’d decided to go check it out in person, plant someone on the inside to get a closer look at things, with that ‘someone’ being Jones.

After all of the weird shit that had been going on in Riverdale over the last couple of years, satanism had almost seemed mundane, to be really honest, and maybe that had led them to underestimate these guys just the tiniest fucking bit. Because it had all seemed to be going well enough, until three days ago, Jones’d just fucking vanished off of the face of the earth. While his dad, the Sheriff, was out of town on some law enforcement seminar or some such bull, of course.

And everyone had just kind of collectively lost their shit there for a moment, a bit of a headless panic, Sweet Pea is somewhat embarrassed to admit, once they’d all realized how dire the situation actually was. But they’d managed to get a grip and organize themselves and then spent those three days scouring every inch of the fucking town they could get access to. With no success at all. Growing more and more frantic as the hours ticked by, a really bad feeling settled firmly in Sweet Pea’s gut, something that’d made his gums itch and the hairs on his arms and on the back of his neck prickle to attention uncomfortably.

Because, yes, he’d been fucking worried. They all had. Jones is smart as Hell, that’s what makes him such a good leader, amongst other things, like his loyalty to the Serpents, his willingness to risk his own neck to protect his kin (something that had more than earned him Sweet Pea’s respect). But he’s also really shit at looking out for himself and he couldn’t throw a decent fucking punch, if his life depended on it. It’s kind of sad really. Sweet Pea had made a quiet, ill-tempered vow to himself during those past three days that he’d give Jones some much needed one-on-one self-defense lessons once this whole thing blew over.

Sweet Pea somehow doubts that Jones will ever be the most proficient at kicking ass in a physical setting, but he doesn’t need to be either, just as long as he could maybe start to avoid getting the shit kicked out of him or getting fucking kidnapped like every five seconds. Out-thinking the bad guys is a really neat trick when it works, right up until it doesn’t. And Jones is their ‘king’ for crying out loud. What kind of light does that cast on the Serpents, huh?

That’s not to say, that Sweet Pea doesn’t, very quietly and very privately, think it’s kind of cute. Jones with his narrow hips and his skinny arms and spindly little legs. Very impractical. But kind of cute. OK, so maybe Jones isn’t actually _that_ scrawny, but compared to Sweet Pea he might as well be. Then again, Sweet Pea knows he’s kind of big so he might not have the most unbiased point of view here, but whatever.

And so what, if he’s had one or the other fantasy of being the knight in shining armor, who bursts in and saves the day (or rather, Jones’ cute ass), when things get dire? No-one’s ever going to find out about it, Sweet Pea’s very much prepared to take that secret to his grave with him. Also, fantasies is all they are, and the reality of it had honestly been a lot more nerve-wracking, than Sweet Pea would have ever liked to live through first hand.

Because it had taken Toni (her, Cheryl and the Pretty Poisons had joined the Serpents’ efforts in locating Jones as soon as they’d gotten wind of what was going on) and one badly printed flier of the church’s to finally point them in the right direction. A set of events so entirely dependent on chance it makes Sweet Pea feel kind of ill just thinking about it. And even then, they’d just barely made it in time.

Fox forest has always crept Sweet Pea out for some inexplicable reason. Nothing really tangible, just a feeling. Something uneasy in his gut that gets worse the deeper he goes, the closer they got to the border to Greendale, where the woods are densest and darkest, ancient and eerie. And being there at night, during a fucking blood moon, no less, its light casting everything in a crimson hue, hadn’t exactly made it any better.

They’d found the members of the ‘Church of Satan’ there, on a clearing, gathered in a wide circle and dressed in long, black robes, bathed in red as the moon poured down onto the them, unobstructed by the crowns of the trees. A scene directly out of half a dozen horror movies Sweet Pea could name off of the top of his head. Not cliched at all or anything. But definitely still plenty ominous. And in the center of the clearing, a motionless figure tied to a bulky stone altar of some sort, covered from head to toe in blood. Naked aside form a pair of sodden boxers. Sweet Pea’s heart had stopped for a second there, when he’d realized that that figure was Jones. So very still in the moon’s angry glow.

They’d stormed the clearing together, the Serpents and the Pretty Poisons side by side, bows and knives and brass knuckles brandished and ready to cause mayhem, and the stupid robed figures hadn’t even thought to put up a fight. They’d taken one look at their attackers, wide-eyed and baffled, and then turned on their fucking heels to flee into the woods, headless and panicking like a flock of startled geese. That part at least had been fairly anticlimactic, Sweet Pea thinks.

Sweet Pea had signaled Cheryl and Toni to take lead of the rest of the Serpents and the Pretty Poisons in the pursuit of the fleeing, who would be handed over to the authorities later, while he and Fangs hurried to the altar. In the darkness, Sweet Pea’d almost lost his footing when he’d stumbled over the carcass of a beheaded and disemboweled goat that’d been laying discarded next to the altar with a strange set of symbols cut into its side.

Sweet Pea’d had a moment of having to fight back nausea at the ghoulish sight, but there’d been more important things at the time and he’d hurried the last couple of steps up to the figure on the altar, Fangs following suit with his flashlight. The first thing Sweet Pea’d done, heart racing in his throat, is check for a pulse and make sure Jones was still breathing, hands a little more shaky than he’d ever like to admit as he’d felt along Jones’ sticky, slippery neck. And the relief that’d washed over him, when he’d found Jones’ pulse strong and steady, if a little slow, had nearly been enough to knock him on his ass. Sweet Pea’s a professional, though, and the fact that Jones was alive didn’t mean that they were out of the woods yet (so to speak…).

He’d patted Jones’ cheek to get him to open his eyes, first softly, then a little harder until, finally, Jones’d come to with a jerk, startled eyes flying open and then slipping back shut almost immediately. “Hey, wake up, dammit.” Sweet Pea’d groused, fingers digging into Jones’ cheeks to get his head to stop lolling about. Jones’d just shuddered and pulled a face, annoyed and drowsy, and groaned quietly.

“Dude, I think he’s drugged or something.” Fangs’d observed and yeah, no shit. Sweet Pea’d cursed under his breath. “Come on, help me cut him loose. I can’t tell, if he’s hurt like this.”

They’d both pulled their switchblades and sawed at the rope tying Jones to the huge slab of stone that was itself, covered in rivulets of blood and carvings of the same strange symbols Sweet Pea’d been able to make out on the poor goat. Together they’d gotten Jones free and into a sitting position, Sweet Pea’s arm wrapped firmly around Jones’ back to keep him upright, Jones’ head lolling onto Sweet Pea’s shoulder. And maybe that would have felt kind of nice, if the circumstances’d been a little different.

But as it were, Fangs shining the beam of his flashlight all along Jones’ lanky form to look for injuries, Sweet Pea’d kind of had other things on his mind. They hadn’t been able to find anything, but they hadn’t really been able to tell for sure either, not with all of that fucking blood. “We need to get him cleaned up, man.” Sweet Pea’d murmured, trying and failing to get Jones off of the stupid altar and onto his feet, hands slipping on wet skin and nose wrinkling in disgust at the biting, coppery smell. It’d all been way too reminiscent of that time Jones’d nearly died, sacrificing himself to the Ghoulies to keep the Serpents safe, that image of FP carrying a limp, blood-covered kid out of the woods burnt into the back of Sweet Pea’s mind forever and he had to try really hard not to think of that too much.

“Shit, help me for a second.” And with that, Sweet Pea’d let Fangs hold Jones upright, so that he could slip out of his jacket and, together, Fangs and him’d managed to pull Jones’ arms through the sleeves. The jacket too big for Jones made him look like a kid in a costume and something in Sweet Pea’s chest’d pulled uncomfortably tight at the sight of him like that. It’d made Sweet Pea want to bundle him up and lock him away somewhere he’d be fucking safe, at least for a little while. The leather, though, even with all of the blood Fangs and Sweet Pea’d already gotten onto themselves, had been an easier grip and they’d managed to haul Jones along with them.

“The Bunker?” Fangs’d asked and Sweet Pea’d nodded his head decisively. “The Bunker.” It’d seemed like their best option.

~*~*~

And here they are now, Sweet Pea’s arms under Jones’, wrapped around Jones’ chest, pretty much the only thing holding him up while Fangs descends the ladder after him. Jones’ bare feet leave bloody prints on the naked concrete and he shudders in Sweet Pea’s grip. “’S cold.” He complains, drowsy and unusually inarticulate. He reeks like a slaughterhouse, too, the cloying smell quickly becoming overwhelming in the enclosed space of the bunker.

Goat’s blood, the way it looks, and God, Sweet Pea hopes that’s all it is. Fangs hops off of the last step of the ladder and gives Jones slumping uselessly in Sweet Pea’s grip a look. “You need help carrying him or something?” He asks, one eyebrow raised, his face paler than usual with a stray smear of crimson across one of his cheeks standing out starkly.

He looks kind of shaken and Sweet Pea can’t really blame him for it. They went through one Hell of a scare there and they’re not exactly done containing the situation, yet. Plus, Fangs just got back from the psyche ward after having been brainwashed by an _organ harvesting cult_ , so maybe he’s still a bit fragile when it comes to stress in general. Or maybe it’s the blood. Usually Jones would be the one knowing what to do when shit hits the fan, but since he’s kind of incapacitated at the moment, it looks like it’ll be up to Fangs and him to get it handled for now.

“Nah, I’ve got this.” Sweet Pea mumbles and shifts his grip so that he can snake an arm under Jones’ knees and heft him up properly, figuring it’ll be easier to just carry him, than to try and drag him along. He grunts a little and has to re-adjust his grip, though, because Jones is actually heavier than he looks. And isn’t that just like him, being a contrary bastard in a situation like this, Sweet Pea thinks morosely. “Just get the door to the bathroom.”

And here Sweet Pea is, lugging his boss, who’s covered in blood from head to toe, bridal style through an underground bunker in the middle of the fucking woods. The thing dreams are made of and all that. Jones’s head lolls onto Sweet Pea’s shoulder again and he ends up pressing his face into the side of Sweet Pea’s neck, the feeling of it mostly sticky and a little ticklish, but it’s not like Sweet Pea hasn’t gotten blood all over himself already anyway. And so what, if it’s also kind of really fucking cute? But maybe this isn’t the best time to think about that…

The bunker isn’t exactly huge, but it offers up enough room for Sweet Pea to maneuver through it, without bumping Jones’ head on anything, so that’s pretty cool. And with Fangs holding the door for him, he shuffles sideways into the bathroom, which is barely big enough for him and Jones. Bending down awkwardly while trying not to bash his forehead in on the bare concrete wall across from him, Sweet Pea sets Jones down on the floor, his back propped up against the wall. Then he starts to untie his boots and kick them off, socks following suit and Sweet Pea stuffs them into the neck of his boots before he hands them over to Fangs, who’s still standing in the doorway and looking at Sweet Pea a little bewildered.

“Dude, what?” Fangs says, face a slightly taken aback mask of confusion. Sweet Pea can’t suppress the urge to roll his eyes at him.

“What does it fucking look like?” Sweet Pea mutters as he pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it at Fangs, who scrambles to catch it and drops Sweet Pea’s boots in the process, the sound of them hitting the floor loud in the small space. When it becomes clear that all Fangs is going to do is gape at him stupidly, Sweet Pea gives him a _look_ and tags on, voice flat. “Does Jones fucking look like he’ll be able to stand on his own in the shower? Someone’s gonna have to hold him up to, you know –“ Sweet Pea gestures vaguely with his hands, movements a little jerky. “– keep him from falling over and breaking his neck, or something. And that’s gonna get really messy. So, since I’d actually like to have something to wear once we’re ready to get out of here I’m not about to jump into the shower with him fully dressed.”

“Oh.” Fangs murmurs, looking a little more collected as he reaches out to take the pair of jeans Sweet Pea, left standing there in his black boxer briefs, is handing him. “I’m just gonna go sit over there or something.” Fangs waves his hand haphazardly in the direction of the cot and then shuffles off with Sweet Pea’s clothes clutched awkwardly to his chest.

Sweet Pea just shakes his head wordlessly as he watches Fangs go. He loves Fangs like a brother, he really does and fuck all’s ever going to change that, but he worries for that kid sometimes… Fangs has been a little off ever since he got back from the ward. Sweet Pea knows he’s been trying, they all have, but stuff like that takes time, he guesses. There’s no magical cure for brainwashing like that and neither is there for the kind of guilt Sweet Pea feels for not having seen it coming, for not having been there when Fangs would have needed him. It’s something Sweet Pea’s going to have to live with. And he’s doing his damnedest to be there for Fangs _now_ , at least.

But again, time to concentrate on the tasks immediately ahead of him, like wrestling Jones back out of his jacket. Jones just lets Sweet Pea do his thing, mostly, but when Sweet Pea reaches for his blood-sticky boxers, Jones makes a sound of protest low in his throat and unskillfully tries to bat Sweet Pea’s hands away. Sweet Pea sighs and crouches down, wraps his fingers around Jones’ chin so that he can make Jones look at him. “Hey.” Sweet Pea mumbles, snapping the fingers of his other hand in front of Jones’ face until his eyes re-focus and it at least seems like Sweet Pea’s got his attention. “I need to get you cleaned up, OK? And I’m not gonna be able to do that, if you’re still wearing those. So you just gotta let me work here, alright?”

Jones makes another sound, something that could be either agreement or protest, Sweet Pea can’t tell for sure, but he decides to get on with things anyway. He makes sure to be quick about pulling Jones’ boxers off his hips and down his legs. It takes a little maneuvering, but he manages. Doing his best to keep his eyes, where it’s decent, Sweet Pea slots his hands underneath Jones’ armpits and heaves him onto his feet again, Jones scrambling along awkwardly.

Sweet Pea’s been to juvy before, him and Fangs both, gone through the demeaning routine of processing, through prison showers and whatnot and he’s learned not to let himself be fazed by it. This thing here only has to be weird, if he lets it, he knows that and it doesn’t matter what he thinks about Jones, whether or not he finds him cute and kind of hot, he’s going to handle the situation without being a fucking creep about it, thanks.

Sweet Pea turns Jones so that he can wrap his arms around his chest again to keep him upright as he frog-marches Jones into the shower. Jones just sags against his chest gracelessly and Sweet Pea has to be careful not to let him slip as he adjusts his grip so that he can reach to turn on the water. The plumbing gurgles and sputters for a second, but then the shower head starts spewing lukewarm water onto them. Jones grunts and jerks a little in his grip and Sweet Pea turns up the temperature to be a little more comfortable, before wrapping his arms more securely around Jones so that he can just stand there with him for a moment, let the spray wash away the heaviest layers of blood.

His boxer briefs get soak through quickly and the feeling of the cloth sticking to his skin isn’t exactly great, but it could be worse, Sweet Pea guesses as he watches the rivulets spiraling down the drain slowly fade from a deep red to a lighter, more diluted pink. When it finally looks like all that’s going to come off like this has been washed away, Sweet Pea reaches for the soap and lathers it up on his hands, then reaches up one-handed to carefully work the suds into Jones’ hair, while still keeping him on his feet. Jones sighs at that, tilts his head into Sweet Pea’s touch and mumbles “feels good” under his breath.

And, yeah, OK, that doesn’t make it weird at all, Sweet Pea thinks dryly. It doesn’t have to be perfect, Jones can do a full cleanse himself, once he’s regained his wits, Sweet Pea decides hurriedly and moves ways from his hair, ignoring the disappointed whine that pulls from Jones. A little more color on his face than before, Sweet Pea starts to perfunctorily spread soap over Jones’ arms down to his hands, then moves on to his chest, Jones squirming in his grip a little and complaining incoherently when Sweet Pea, apparently, hits a ticklish spot. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea for Fangs to take a step back form this nonsense, Sweet Pea thinks a little desperately, because an additional audience probably wouldn’t exactly have made things better either.

Jones keeps making these soft little sounds that get almost-lost in the splash and patter of the shower spray when Sweet Pea touches him, subconsciously leaning into Sweet Pea, pressing back against his chest more firmly. And, yep, when Sweet Pea glances down, his uneasy suspicion is confirmed, because it’s pretty obvious that Jones, in his addled, drug ridden state, is maybe getting a little too excited about the closeness and the touching and all that naked skin. Fucking great, Sweet Pea thinks a tad bit flustered, and cursing under his breath he hurriedly reaches out to turn the water temperature all the way down.

The spray goes form nicely heated to freezing cold in a matter of seconds and Sweet Pea gasps and shudders when it hits him, Jones jerking in his grip futilely, trying to twist away from the shock of it, but too clumsy to manage, sputtering incoherently. But it definitely does the trick and takes care of the ‘problem’, Sweet Pea notes with no small amount of relief. Jones is too fucking easy, Sweet Pea thinks morosely as he turns off the water completely once the last of the soap has been washed away and reaches out for a towel. Someone with a less solid set of morals might have been tempted to take advantage of the situation and the thought alone makes him feel vaguely ill.

Fucking Jones and his fucking propensity for getting himself into trouble. Sweet Pea sits Jones down in the shower, back propped against the wet tiles, so that he can dry himself off before starting in on Jones. He’s quick and efficient about it, a little rough maybe in how he’s jostling Jones around and Jones clumsily tries to bat his hands away, but he really doesn’t want to risk a repeat incident. Once he’s as done as he’s going to get, Sweet Pea tucks the towel around Jones’ hips and heaves him up and into his arms again, so that Sweet Pea can carry him out of the bathroom.

Fangs vacates his seat on the cot as soon as he sees the two of them coming and Jones gives a subdued ‘oompf’ when Sweet Pea drops him down onto the covers. Now, with all of the blood cleaned off and in the sufficient lighting of the bunker, they can finally check for injuries and Sweet Pea lets his eyes do a perfunctory swipe, trying not to notice any details that feel too intimate, like how pale Jones is all around or the patterns formed by the dark moles scattered across his skin. It actually looks as though Jones got away pretty much unharmed, aside from a dark, purple-blue bruise on his left cheek and reddish abrasions circling around his wrist and ankles where they must have kept him tied up.

Sweet Pea still has to swallow down the anger that bubbles up in his chest at the sight, though. Those assholes will get what’s coming to them, he thinks. They’ll be spending a good while behind bars for their troubles and from the way they reacted to actual confrontation, Sweet Pea guesses with some amount of satisfaction that it’ll be a pretty rough ride for them. He bends down to wrestle the covers out from under Jones so that Sweet Pea can tuck him in, covering up the goose flesh that’d started to spread out across his arms and legs. Jones opens his eyes for a moment, staring blearily up at Sweet Pea, brows furrowed in confusion, and it looks like he’s about to say something, but then his eyes slip shut again and he sags against he pillow, his hair a sticking up at weird angles as he seemingly drifts off.

“You think he’s gonna be OK?” Fangs asks from next to Sweet Pea, Sweet Pea’s clothes clutched firmly to his chest. He still looks worried and Sweet Pea does his best to sound reassuring when he answers. “Yeah, probably. I think he just needs to sleep off whatever it was they gave him and then he’ll be fine. Cranky as Hell, probably, but fine. Now give me back my stuff so I can get dressed, dude. It’s really chilly in here.”

His words have the desired effect of making Fangs snort and raise an ironic eyebrow as he hands Sweet Pea his clothes. “Don’t hold back on my account.” Fangs says dryly and Sweet Pea grins and waggles his eyebrows exaggeratedly as he walks backwards toward the bathroom where he can have a little privacy.

“Don’t think I didn’t see you looking.” Sweet Pea throws back at Fangs, who just gives him the finger and mumbles a grumpy “You wish, dude.” as he Sweet Pea pulls the door closed after himself. Stepping out of his wet underwear and back into his jeans the grin on Sweet Pea’s face softens and lingers. This is good, he thinks, the ribbing and teasing. It almost feels normal, like it used to be before things got as fucked up as they did and it gives him hope that they’re going to find their balance again. That Fangs, too, is going to be OK eventually.

His shirt’s got dried blood all over the front and along one shoulder, but it’s black so it doesn’t look too bad, all it does is stiffen the fabric a little uncomfortably, but it’s better than nothing, because Sweet Pea definitely won’t be putting on his jacket again before he’s thoroughly cleaned it. He steps into his boots last and ties them quickly, gathering up his jacket and very purposefully leaving Jones’ ruined boxers exactly where they are before stepping back out into the main room of the bunker. Fangs has flopped down in one of the folding chairs, angled towards the cot and his eyes on Jones, lost in thought.

Fangs looks up at Sweat Pea when he walks over and pulls out a chair for himself. “So, what now, man?”

Sweet Pea shrugs and glances over at Jones, dead to the world, looking soft and unguarded in his sleep in a way they don’t normally get to witness. “Wait and keep watch until he wakes up.”

“Cool.” Fangs mumbles and starts to play with the hem of his leather jacket distractedly. He’s still got that smear of dried blood on his cheek and Sweet Pea has to suppress the urge to reach out and rub it off. Fangs looks about as tired as Sweet Pea feels after the couple of days they just had.

“You know, you can head back to the camp, if you want to. Get some sleep.” Sweet Pea offers and shoves his fist against Fangs’ shoulder, not meant to hurt, just hard enough to make him sway in his seat a little. “I can handle this alone. You don’t have to stick around, if you don’t want to.”

“Dude, forget it. If you’re staying, I’m staying.” Fangs shoots back, looking almost offended at the notion and Sweet Pea doesn’t even try to dull down his grin at his words. The expression widening when out of no-where Fangs’ stomach starts to rumble, the sound loud in the otherwise quite of the bunker. Fangs groans and brings his hands up to cover his stomach. “On the other hand, I’m kind of starving. I could swing by Pop’s and get burgers for all of us? Jones’ll probably be a lot less likely to bite our heads off when he wakes up, too, if we bribe him with food.”

Sweet Pea can’t really argue with either of those points. He can feel his own stomach pull tight and complain at the prospect of a decent meal. With all of the stuff going on, the chaos of their frantic search for Jones, they may have skipped a meal or two without even noticing. “Sounds like a pretty decent plan.” He says and watches Fangs nod decisively and scramble up out of his seat.

“Awesome. Be back in like an hour max.” Fangs throws over his shoulder and he’s half way up the ladder out of the bunker before Sweet Pea even has the time to think of a reply. So he just grins and shakes his head as he watches his best friend disappear through the hatch. Yeah. Normal.

Now, all that Jones has to do is get through the rest of the night OK and things will sort themselves out just fine. Maybe they’ll never be able to go back to the way things were before all this madness of the last two years unraveled around them, but maybe they don’t have to, either. Maybe it can be enough to just put one foot in front of the other, slow and steady, until the ground beneath their soles turns solid enough to stand on safely again.

~*~*~

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it~
> 
> P.S.: Please let me know, if there's anything else I should warn for <3


End file.
